A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing
Tao Te Ching: Chapter 19
Alexander Pope, scorning the “bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,” proclaims the following in An Essay on Criticism:
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
It is interesting to compare these lines with the first part of Chapter 19 of the Tao Te Ching, which not only warns of the potential pitfalls of superficial knowledge, as Pope does, but further suggests that any sort of striving after knowledge is futile. Laozi then proceeds to caution against the pursuit of idealistic abstractions and what today we would call crass commercialism. Finally, a life of modest simplicity is recommended as befitting a Taoist. Here’s the English rendering:
The Translation
Extinguish sagacity, abandon wisdom: The People will profit a hundredfold. Extinguish humaneness, abandon justice: The People will restore filial piety. Extinguish cunning, abandon profit: Thieves will no longer exist. These three written precepts are insufficient. Thus this rule has its place: Embrace simple purity, While lessening selfish desires.
The Original
Wang Bi’s original prose version:
絕聖棄智，民利百倍；絕仁棄義，民復孝慈；絕巧棄利，盜賊無有。此三者以為文不足。故令有所屬：見素抱樸，少私寡欲。
Our poetic reformatting:
絕聖棄智， 民利百倍； 絕仁棄義， 民復孝慈； 絕巧棄利， 盜賊無有。 此三者以為文不足。 故令有所屬： 見素抱樸， 少私寡欲。
Terminology
絕 (jué) - here translated as “extinguish,” the word can also mean “cut off,” “break off,” “terminate,” “sever,” “end,” “discontinue” (see Notes)
棄 (qì) - paired and roughly synonymous with 絕 (jué), the word is here translated as “abandon” but can also mean “discard”
聖 (shèng) - here translated as “sagacity,” the word can also mean “sage,” “saint,” “holy,” “sacred”
智 (zhì) - “wisdom,” “knowledge” (cf. Chapter 18)
仁 (rén), meaning “humaneness” or “humanity,” and 義 (yì), meaning “justice,” are paired together here in Chapter 19 just as they were in Chapter 18
民 (mín) - “the People” (cf. Chapter 3 et passim)
利 (lì) - here translated as “profit” (both verb and noun), the word can also mean “favorable,” “advantage,” “benefit”
Notes
Ursula K. Le Guin: “This chapter and the two before it may be read as a single movement of thought.”
Derek Lin elaborates on the first part of Chapter 19, which I have connected above with Pope’s lines from An Essay on Criticism: “The character jue, translated as ‘end,’ means to discontinue. The concept is clear: we should put a stop to the obsession with book knowledge and focus on the wisdom of living outside of books. It is the ancient Chinese way of telling a bookworm to ‘get a life.’”